Aims
and Objectives
ISSN: Print - 2277-9094

Web -
2277-9108

Regional imbalance is a
matter of serious concern throughout the globe, especially in
geographically large countries of the third world. In a large
economy, regions with different resource bases and endowments would
have dissimilar growth paths over time. However, even small
differences in the growth rates, when cumulated over long periods,
will create large differences in standards of living of the people
across regions. Such inequality tends to generate economic, social,
and political tension among regions, which may snowball into
movements calling for secession of provinces/regions and ultimate
breaking-up of formerly stable and powerful nation states. To
prevent this, the nation state often takes redistributive policies
that are not economically justified leading to misallocation of
resources and negative effects on subsequent growth and development
of the economy.

Theoretical generalizations
about growth and regional disparities were provided in the
pioneering works of Gunnar Myrdal, Albert Hirschman, and William
Alonso, through the concepts of Backwash
effects, Spread effects, Polarization
effects, and Trickle-down effects. The
seminal work of Williamson covering a broad spectrum of countries
at different levels of development strongly suggested that regional
disparities behave in an inverted U-shaped fashion, first
increasing and then declining. This reflected the neoclassical
postulate of Barro that when an economy takes off, initially
regions with better resources would grow faster than others,
widening regional imbalance, but later, as law of diminishing
returns sets in, growth rates would converge, bridging the regional
divide.

Empirical evidence on this is
however debatable, especially when investment decisions are mainly
in private domain. Regions with better infrastructure would attract
more investment, economic activities will concentrate
in core regions due to agglomeration economics,
and regional inequality will rise. This was the main reason why
centralised and regional economic planning was advocated to
restrain regional disparity in federal countries like India. While
regional imbalances were kept in check throughout most of the
second half of the last century, new global economic order with
focus on non-interventionist state since the
last two decades has resulted in increased regional disparity in
most part of the globe, including China, Russia, Mexico, South
Africa, and India. Increased spatial inequality has raised several
questions about both theory and experience of
convergence/divergence among regions, how secessionist tendencies
may be thwarted, and how to bring about balanced development of the
nation state. Regional Analysis is therefore very much at the
cynosure of development studies at present, strengthening the
argument that development of the pieces is the only way to develop
the whole.

Journal of
Regional Development and Planning will publish
original work that explores conceptual and empirical papers from
all branches of social sciences with a focus on, but not limited
to, regional development. It will provide a platform for exchange
of ideas among a broad spectrum of policy makers, administrators
and academics on issues related to regional studies and regional
planning.